MacEachern: 8 big, important beliefs

Arizonans for a Martin Luther King Jr. state holiday held a rally in front of the State Senate on April 24, 1989(Photo: The Republic/Michael Meister)

Things I believe in:

Long walks on the beach in the rain …

Wait! Wait! Wrong list. That’s from the one I’m sending to the Lifetime Channel for my bio-pic project.

Here’s the right list…

Blind justice and rule of law. For years, I struggled to grasp the meaning of “social justice.” Advocates would speak the phrase like it had a precise definition beyond just “free stuff for my side.” It doesn’t. Societies established on the rule of law that ignore the rule of law can’t pass the third-world smell test. If the outcome of the law differs based on arbitrary standards like race, gender or social status, you just don’t get to call yourself a legitimate republic.

Free speech and real debate. It is no coincidence that the political side that quivers with rage at the words “Citizens” and “United” is also the side that (at best) tolerates and (at worst) encourages speech codes and unquestioning fealty to its big issues. If you believe your political opponents are not just wrong but are morally corrupt for disagreeing with you, it becomes very easy to sic the IRS on them, or prosecute them as lawbreakers.

That both political sides have their radicals, in fairly equal proportions. They are the yin and yang of modern American politics. Strong criticism of our latter-day conservative tea partiers is well-earned. Once a font of outrage over Obamacare and government red ink. Now? A neo-John Birch Society with a kill switch on compromise. But at least the tea party is distinct from the GOP center. The Great Delusion of Democrats today is that many of them really do believe that pie-dividing socialism and environmentalism that is consciously hostile to job growth is evidence of mainstream political thinking.

That Arizonans get a raw deal, image-wise. Once admired for the rugged individualism of Barry Goldwater (see: hot-dude B/W photo of Young Barry in the Grand Canyon – you know which one I’m talking about). Prior to 1986, Arizona's stoic, Western ethos was widely admired, mythic or not. Now? Hotbed of racist haters and xenophobes. On May 9, 1986, the Arizona House failed by a single vote to make Arizona the second state to legislatively create a holiday honoring the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. By December, reactionary Ev Mecham was elected with less than 40 percent of the vote and was vowing to rescind his predecessor’s decree. Suddenly the state was deemed to be teeming with racists. It is a caricature that has remained ever since.

Continuing the Raw Deal theme, Arizona is the first state to have put the King holiday issue to a statewide vote. And the only one to have voted on the issue twice. It wasn’t sneaked into law by order of an outgoing governor. It wasn't stowed in the fine print of some 100-page general appropriations bill. Nor was it mandated by a judge. It was debated in the open, front and center. Facing that explosive issue twice took community courage. Failure a second time would have been disastrous. And if the most obnoxious, politically block-headed NFL team owner ever – Norman Braman of the Philadelphia Eagles – hadn’t opened his yap about taking back the 1993 Super Bowl if the first vote in 1990 failed, the state would have voted but once.

Religious liberty. People of the Left need to ponder what it might be like if the government ever started muscling environmentalists out of the public commons, or if the ACLU started obtaining court orders forcing them to keep their Gaia-worshiping ways behind closed doors. Yes, I know that’s crazy hard to imagine. But it is a fair parallel. Religious freedom, in certain circles, is being treated like a constitutional typo.

That the right to vote is sacrosanct. But so is the integrity of the voting system. My good liberal friends who (to a person) think concerns for system integrity are misplaced and racist need to conduct a rational-thought test on themselves: The consequences of losing an American election now can register in the trillions of dollars in lost taxing and regulatory powers. And, often times, all that partisan election activists – the most ruthless zealots in all of politics -- need to do to maneuver results in their favor is to control the margins of the vote. In many cases, that means controlling a few thousand or even a few hundred votes. Do you really believe they won’t do everything they can get away with to accomplish that goal? Really? In an age of mail-in ballots and eternal campaigns, opportunity for malfeasance is rife. If voters become convinced the zealots control election outcomes, our system is cooked. Yet the only motivation for worrying about voting-system integrity is racism? Get real.